Exercise Epiphany

Hey everyone,

Sorry for not writing in so long. I know you’ve basically had to put your life on hold as you waited on my next post, so I hope you didn’t miss any important life events (i.e.—birthdays, anniversaries, promotions at work, births of your first children, etc.). If you did, please let me know what you missed and I will do my best to research what happened and give you the Cliff Notes to your life. In the meantime….P90X Phase 2.

Later today (or maybe tomorrow…or maybe next week…or maybe never), I’ll start giving you the lowdown on the newest exercises involved in Phase 2 of P90X. The beauty of the program is that it focuses on “muscle confusion” by giving you completely new routines to master during the second phase, and after doing the first new routine (Chest, Shoulders & Arms)yesterday, it’s clear that it works. After an hour, my muscles were so confused that you would have thought I asked them to compare and contrast the spiritual significance of Maple Syrup and Fibonacci numbers. But after the haze of confusion cleared, one thing was obvious: confusion equals pain. More on this later.

Today, as I enjoyed the emotional comfort of performing a familiar routine—Plyometrics—I was struck with a fitness analogy. You see, I do not like Plyometrics. Not even a little bit. I like the results…but I dread the work itself. So I asked myself, why I don’t just listen to Tony’s recommendation at the beginning of the DVD when he says, “There’s always Cardio X, for those of you that aren’t Plyo X –ready”. Therein lies the genius of his plan. I like Cardio even less than Plyo, so he knows there is no way I’m going to voluntarily choose Cardio X.

Here’s the analogy that struck me this morning as I was doing Double Airborne Heisman’s:

It’s like a high school dance. Plyometrics is your date. She’s not the most glamorous girl in the school, but she is by no means unattractive. The problem is that you simply don’t like her. There’s no animosity, but you’d just rather spend your time with other people. After a couple dances, it’s clear to both of you that neither of you are enjoying the dance as much as you’d hoped, so she says to you, “Listen, we don’t have to do this. I have this friend, her name is Cardio X, and I think she’d enjoy dancing with you.” Here’s the problem: Cardio X IS a rude, socially backwards girl with really poor hygiene… AND she has a HUGE crush on you. You’re a polite guy, so you don’t want to give her false hope and further fuel her obsession. Because of this, there is NO WAY that you’re going to ask her to dance. You’d rather just stick with Plyo and make the best of it.

That is my relationship with Plyometrics.

I don’t like her, but Cardio X is standing in the corner waving far too eagerly. Since it’s best to avoid all eye contact with Cardio, Plyo remains my dance partner. Like it or not.